Psionic Naruto
by Orange Spiral 62
Summary: What if it was the Yin chakra of the Kyuubi that was sealed into Naruto in place of the Yang? What if he obtained a new power because of this. Smart!Intelligent!Strong! but not godlike Naruto. Rated M for swearing and dark themes.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

Naruto was always a strange child in many ways. He was a silent baby most of the time where other babies wailed and screamed and generally made a ruckus. As he grew up that trait did not change. He always seemed to analyse everything going on around him. And he was confused on what he observed.

Everyone always seemed to just barely tolerate his presence, even the kindly matron at the orphanage never seemed to have a kind word for him. At first he thought it was normal until he saw people interacting with other kids, and he realised that it was not socially acceptable behaviour to glare at a five year old boy. He could not understand what reason everyone had to hate him so much, what had he done wrong?

And ironically he got the answer from a person who tried to kill him. Once he had wandered away from the orphanage during the night-time. The people working at the orphanage tried their best to ignore he even existed so they never noticed him missing.

A villager who saw Naruto wandering around in the night and most importantly not with the company of anyone else, corners him in a dark alleyway and tries to stab him with a short carpenter's knife he has in his coat pocket. Naruto panics on seeing a man stalking towards him menacingly with a knife in his hand. His body is locked with fright and goes into fight or flight response, releasing a huge amount of adrenalin, which almost sends him into shock, him being just a five year old after all.

In this moment, an event takes place which changes Naruto's fate forever. Maybe it was a quirk of fate, a side effect of the Shinigami presence himself sealing, or that it was because it was the yin and not the yang part of the Kyuubi that was sealed into Naruto that fateful night, but it triggered a mutation never seen before.

Not even a second had passed as all this had occurred. The man stalking Naruto was confident that he could finish the demon which caused his wife and unborn child to die. But it seems fate had other plans.

Naruto, who was still locked in fear, suddenly was able to process his situation and surroundings at in an instant and the information began to assault his mind at a ferocious speed. Not understanding what was happening or how, he instinctively made use of his of his new power and froze the incoming threat.

The man suddenly stopped, rooted to the spot as he could no longer move his body. He began to think that the demon was using its power to control him.

Just as Naruto was wishing he could understand why the man had tried to attack him, he could hear the man's thoughts. He was stunned into silence, as he subconsciously tried to understand what he was thinking about as he could not understand what the man was thinking. Where was the demon the man was thinking of? Was he insane or was he himself going insane? But he found that he could read no farther than the man's surface thoughts, i.e. the things he was thinking of at that moment, but not his memories or experiences.

Not being able to hold the man any longer he gasped as he fell onto the street holding his head. It felt like it was about to explode. Only then did he realize that "I heard what he was thinking! It was like I could see into his head! How did I do that?"

By then the man had gotten over his being stopped momentarily by the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and not wanting to take a chance started to run towards Naruto to finish him off while he was still down and before he could his power again.

When Naruto looked back up, the man was almost on him, and again his brain began squeezing out all relevant information on the present threat, how the man was running, the way he held the knife, his speed and so on. Naruto snapped his body almost instinctively to the appropriate solution to his problem. Using the data he had acquired he moved his body such that when the man closed on him, he just redirected the man's speed and instead of vainly trying to fight against the older and obviously much stronger opponent. From his position on the ground he moved his hands underneath the hand holding the knife and repositioned it under the man's jugular vein, while his legs entwined around the bigger male's legs and pushed. The result of which the older man went skidding into the ground his own knife entering into the jugular vein and cutting it open releasing a spray of blood. The man slumped, his eyes dimming as his lifeblood spilled onto the dirty street.

And Naruto sat there uncomprehending of what had just happened. His hands were stained with blood and he went into shock for few seconds but his mental faculties again caught up with him. His immediate thoughts were for survival. Already he was treated as if he were a burden or leper. If he was found like this, his probability of living to see the sunrise was very, very low. He scrambled away from the body not yet coming to terms what had just happened... what he had just done. This would be the beginning of a chain of events that would change his life forever.

*Chapter End*

Hey guys this is my first story so please take a moment to review this after you have read it. Constructive criticism is welcomed. Questions on Naruto's new powers will be answered in the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi friends and welcome to the second chapter of Psionic Naruto.**

**To drake202, Naruto's powers are based on a game I played once called Psi-ops. I thought it would be cool to write such a thing for Naruto, as long as it does not make him Godlike too soon.**

**Well that's it for now. Enjoy the second chapter.**

**CHAPTER 2**

As Naruto is running away from the crime scene a light shower begins over Konoha. It washes away his scent and footprints from the scene thus erasing Naruto's presence in the area at the time of the murder. So, by the time the ANBU investigate there would be no signs of any other presence in the area during the time of the murder.

His mind still blank he keeps running until he reaches a particularly large training ground with a small pond at the edge. The streaks of the other man's blood on him are hurriedly washed away in the pond. By the time he is done, he finally is able to think clearly again as the shock of the event had worn off by then.

The man had tried to kill him! Why? What had he done to deserve such a thing? Why did everyone in the village seem to hate him? As he was thinking along the line of these thoughts, his mind revisited the scene of his attempted murder in perfect detail due to his almost eidetic memory. After viewing the memory again he finally grasped the fact that he had been able to hear the man's thoughts, to freeze his moments with his mind!

"How did I do this? Do I have some kind of unknown bloodline ability? Is this why everyone seems to hate me?" As he was thinking he started analysing of how to use his new found powers, and to use them to get answers to the questions that he had had as long as he could speak. He considered telling the Hokage about the incident but then dropped that line of thinking almost immediately. If he told the Sandaime he would ask Naruto uncomfortable questions as to how a five year old child with no ninja training was able to defend himself against a grown man. Besides, even if he explained everything to the Hokage he had a feeling that it would do nothing more than aggravate the situation further without any benefits.

Assuming he told the Hokage everything that happened, he would probably still be left in the dark about why the man had tried to kill him, after all the Sandaime was a master of spouting bullshit, and changing the topic to suit his needs whenever Naruto asked any uncomfortable questions. Naruto had noticed the same signs of deception every time he asked about his parents or about his treatment by the villagers. A man who in the Elemental Nations was known as the "God of Shinobi" was uncomfortable in lying to the little child who asked questions with that trusting face and absolute faith in him. It was not very obvious to most people, except trained ninjas, these signs exhibited by the body, but Naruto had learnt to read people's body language, that even though people lie, their bodies still gave away their secrets. A twitch here, a tightening of the eyes there, a pained expression fleeting on his face when asked about his parents, it was there if you knew where to look. And Naruto knew where to look for these signs that indicate a person's thoughts. He was in no way an expert in reading body language but he knew when he was being lied to and every time the Sandaime told him he was not aware of his parents identities, or that the attitude of the villagers was just temporary and he should be more understanding. The more the Sandaime reiterated these points, the more Naruto lost trust in the Sandaime. After all trust is a two way street.

After thinking and recollecting the memories of the incident Naruto theorized that his own thoughts must have acted as a trigger and activated his ability to read the man's thoughts. He decided to get the information he required the same way. He worked out a plan that would see him appear in an open marketplace in the mornings, when there would only be a few people setting upshop, where he would be able to observe and read the reactions and thoughts of people who saw him.

Naruto spent the night at the training grounds and when the sun appeared to rise he started moving towards the marketplace. When he reached the area he first made sure to enter through a narrow lane by which only few people would be able to see him at any time. Thus he could read the thoughts of the people one by one and then moving on to reveal himself to the next person and so on. As the first person saw him, Naruto immediately started trying to read the civilian's mind by concentrating completely on his thoughts. Immediately he began to hear the civilian's thoughts, "Who is this kid wandering around so early in the morning? Wait... its that Kyuubi kid, what's he doing here?" And then the man began to think of his own children and Naruto was not interested in that topic. Seeing that he immediately moved to place himself in the line of sight of another shopkeeper who more or less was thinking the same thoughts as the other person. But he got something new from the third person he scanned "What is that bastard doing here? How dare it show its face to me, acting like an innocent child! Damn the Sandaime's law! If only..." Naruto stopped listening to the man's thoughts when he heard about the Sandaime. So, the old man was hiding something from him, big surprise. But he was interested in learning that his initial suspicions were right and there was some reason for his pariah status and more or less everyone knew of it but him. Well, he was going to get to the bottom of this matter one way or another.

As he kept scanning the people's minds he found that most did not hate him per se, they just seemed to ignore his existence, and they were apathetic to him, but still he got the feeling that there was still some anger towards him. As he kept this up he finally stumbled upon the information he sought from the thoughts of an old man. The man seemed to blame the death of his son on him, and as he was wondering about the people calling him 'kyuubi brat' and blaming him for deaths of various people, he heard those fateful words which would again change the course of his life, "Damn the Sandaime for protecting the brat. If only we could have finished killing the demonspawn immediately after the Yondaime sealed the Kyuubi into the baby!" And this opened the floodgates to other memories and thoughts, the mobs crowding the Hokage tower after the Sandaime's announcement that the Yondaime had defeated the Kyuubi by sealing the great bijuu into a young child, the still grieving crowd immediately demanding the death of the infant, the Sandaime imposing a law which made discussing the sealing of the bijuu in Naruto, an offence leading to a penalty of death if discussed or if the information was spread. But the damage was already done. The civilian populace and most if not all of the ninja corp. still reeling from the attack and the massive casualties transferred their anger and rage from the Kyuubi to the newly born child. In their minds the beast and the boy were one and the same.

As the man's memory came to an end, Naruto found himself feeling numb. This was the reason everyone hated him for? He had been made an unwilling sacrifice by the Yondaime to protect these people and this is the thanks he gets? Even at that young age Naruto understood that in no way shape or form could he be the bijuu. Even he had heard tales of the nine tailed fox. It was a towering titan with nine tails and malevolent chakra which reeked of death and despair. A single swish could cause a mountain to collapse. And he was none of those things. Even he a five year old boy was able to figure this out. And these people still could not figure out this small detail?

As he was thinking these things he slowly walked away from the area, towards the orphanage. By the time he reached the area containing the orphanage his brain had been running nonstop at full speed. His head was spinning. He contained the greatest tailed beast in his body, thus protecting these worthless bastards. And he is repaid by being ignored, jeered, spat upon and starved and rejected? FUCK THAT! If these people could not let go of their hatred to see that he was not a 100 foot rampaging bijuu then screw them. Why the hell should he give them a second chance when they deny him even a first chance? Screw the Sandaime and his bullshit talk of showing the people that he was a good person. Didn't those morons realize that if he had been the actual bijuu he would have destroyed them for the way they treated him? These people must have shit for brains!

"And then what about the great Yondaime fucking Hokage. What a great man he was" Naruto thought to himself sarcastically. After all he was so great that he left the burden of the fox on the shoulders of a child and didn't even have the decency to use a child who had a family. "maybe I did have a family and they abandoned me after the sealing took place? Maybe wouldn't put it past the useless bastards here to do otherwise." Naruto thought to himself as he finally reached the orphanage gates. When he tried to get inside one of the matrons saw him and started screaming at him, for leaving the orphanage during curfew and then told him to get lost and not come back. Naruto stood stock still absorbing this new shock. He always knew that they disliked him, but to throw out a five year old kid? Naruto already had a lot shocks through the course of the day and this last one changed him irrevocably. He said nothing, just turned and ran away from the

orphanage towards the forests.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto. That honour belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.**

**Sorry for the late update people. I had exams so couldn't update. So now, please enjoy the next chapter of Psionic Naruto.**

**CHAPTER 3**

"Hello"- Human speech

'What?'-Human thoughts

"_Pathetic ningen"-Demonic speech_

'_I shall prevail'-Demonic thoughts_

When Naruto ran away from the orphanage after being told to get out by the matron, he ran into a dense forest, one of many which were dotted in and around Konoha.

He sat and finally processed all the information he had found. And thus he realized the situation he was in. He had unwillingly been used to seal the Kyuubi, thus stopping it from destroying Konoha, thereby saving the populace, but as his reward he was being paid back with such hate. And the Sandaime, he knew why the people hated him, but didn't see fit to tell him, while everybody else knew about it. 'To be fair though, it would be tough to explain all of that to a normal five year old' mused Naruto. And at that moment, he was struck by the thought he didn't consider himself a normal child. While any other child would not have had the thought, Naruto was now happy that he was not like everyone else. Before this he had always trying to fit in, to be like normal people, but he was never treated as such no matter how much he tried.

He briefly entertained the thought of running away from Konoha, but discarded the thought just as quickly. He couldn't outrun trained ninjas, and he was sure the Hokage would have him ordered to be dragged back even if he did get away. Not counting that, the world was a dangerous and cruel place. Even if he managed to escape, there were bandits, slavers and all sorts of other problems he could not even think of. For starters he did not even have money to buy any food, and any trader or merchant would be suspicious of a young boy travelling alone. So that option was out as well. If he needed to escape from this place he needed to get strong. And it would be difficult to do so outside the walls of Konoha where he would have no place to hide.

So he decided that he would use Konoha just as they used him. Any and all traces of even the smallest bits of affection for his place of birth were erased with this decision. He would become strong enough, some day, to leave this place behind forever. But... how would he train? Simply running laps around training grounds would not help. He needed to know how, and in what discipline to train in, and how to correct his flaws. He knew for certain that no one would willingly help him. What should he do?

As these thoughts were circulating through his brain, the entity sealed within his stomach seemed to rouse itself from its long slumber. It had been asleep for a long time, but had awoken as it felt a little more of its chakra being drawn from it than usual. It opened its eyes to see what had happened, and was surprised at the state of its container's mind. It could sense a great deal of emotion from its host and it could sense that a recent event had greatly affected him. It then heard its name being spoken in the child's mind and it grinned, revealing a mouth full of wicked looking teeth bared in an unpleasant grin. It seemed that its host had discovered his presence in his body. It decided to call out to the boy.

While Naruto was pondering his situation, he suddenly felt a tug on his mind, and everything went black. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a giant sewer like place with huge pipes running through the place, and a huge locked cage, with the kanji "SEAL" written on a piece of paper stuck in the middle. He slowly approached the gate, not understanding what was happening, when he saw a huge vulpine shape contained beyond the gates. He stopped when the one of the creature's eyes opened showing a red coloured eye with a slit pupil. Naruto was frozen in his tracks by the oppressive feeling he was getting from the cage. Then the creature beyond the bars spoke "_It seems my container has seen fit to visit me at last" _spoke the Kyuubi no kitsune in a mocking tone, "_Oh I am so honoured by your presence, please step closer so I can see you properly"_ it finished with a terrible looking smile upon its face.

"I think I'll stay right here" said Naruto as he understood to whom he was talking to.

The Kyuubi continued grinning as he said, "_Oh a smart one, and at such a young age. I only wish you were a little closer_" the kyuubi's claws popped out through the cage, stopping somewhat near Naruto's face "_so that I can kill you__**". **_

"No thanks, I would like to live a little longer" replied Naruto.

"_Hmph, tell me why you are here ningen."_

"I... wish to make a deal with you."Naruto replied slowly.

The Kyuubi blinked,__and then started howling with laughter.

"_Pathetic ningen what makes you think I would even consider making a deal with you"._

Naruto was not affected by the biju's behaviour. He knew he would have to hide his fear from the fox for his idea to work.

"It's simple really. We are both in a position that neither wants to be in, but are forced into. And we both wish to survive. Even I can say that. I want to live. I want to make my mark on this world. I wish to see all the different things out there. I think you must have similar desires."

The Kyuubi stared at the child in front of it wondering how the child was able to suppress its own fear when speaking to it, when even grown men and women tremble at the mention of its name. And the child seemed too smart for his age. Its eyes narrowed.

"_And why should I listen to you."_

"Well as you seem to be a tenant in my body the least you could do is help me out, as I suspect it helps you as well. It seems my wellbeing assures your existence.I think that is a pretty good reason, don't you?"

"_Hmm, after you realized my identity I expected you to storm and rage at me for being the cause of your mistreatment at the hands of your village." _said the smirking Kyuubi.

"Please refrain from comparing me to those morons. If they cannot see that I am not a 100 foot monster, it is not my problem."

"_Enough I don't care for your pathetic life or of that of the villagers. Why have you come before me?"_

"It's simple. I want your help and support so that when the time is right we can escape from this place. As we cannot do so at the current time, we need to bide our time until the situation becomes favourable to us. Also I need some help in figuring out the power you gave me."

At this the kyuubi's ears perked up. _"I don't recall giving you any powers. What is this power you speak of?"_

Naruto was caught flat footed for a moment. He honestly believed that the power he had obtained from the attack on him was given to him by the Kyuubi to save its host. But it seemed that it was not the case. He decided to describe the power to the Kyuubi in any case, as he had already mentioned it. If he didn't explain himself, the tenuous bond of trust between him and the biju would be broken. He needed the biju's help so he told the fox everything.

After listening to the description, the Kyuubi concluded that it was most definitely not something it had even heard of. And on its travels

across the world, it had seen several types of powers, techniques and several different bloodline limits from people able to create and use lava to people who could use their own bones to fight. But it had never heard of this sort of power before. And that begged the question, from where did this power come from.

As the Kyuubi was pondering on the subject of his powers, Naruto asked a simple question. Although he was very intelligent he was still just five years old. "Are you male or female?" he asked the Kyuubi.

The Kyuubi replied absentmindedly "_I am a mass of chakra with sentience. I don't have a gender."_

"Oh, well I thought you were a guy since you had such a deep voice and all." replied Naruto.

"_This topic is of no importance. Tell me of this deal you wish to make and be gone" _the fox said.

"Is it right if I assume that you can feel nothing outside the seal?" asked Naruto.

"_Yes."_

"Then I will make it so that you can see, hear, smell, taste and feel everything I do. It may not be much right now, but it is better than nothing. This is a gesture of my good will, so that we may trust each other and work together to achieve our goals. Do you agree to this?"

The Kyuubi was shocked. Why was the boy helping him? "_What do you gain from this? And how will you even do this feat of which you speak?" _snarled Kyuubi not believing Naruto, thinking that he was trying to trick him somehow.

"It's simple. No matter the situation, right now we can only depend on each other for help. You may not need it, but I would like to extend the gesture none the less. If we trust each other we will be able to achieve our goals much easier. And this is my mind, I make the laws here." After saying that, Naruto concentrated and the landscape changed into a huge forest, containing trees that even dwarfed the Kyuubi. The seal tag vanished and became a collar on his neck, except that it did not look like a collar, but like a thick red band with the seal on it. The forest was vast, containing lakes, caves, cliffs, all teeming with life, the sun shone brightly, and it looked like a town was present at the edge of the forest. The Kyuubi was quite literally shocked into silence by all that was happening. A person may be able to change their mindscape, but to alter it in such a way, to create such a complicated and highly detailed area, '_This goes beyond anything I have ever felt. This brat's mental prowess must be monumental to be able to manipulate his mindscape like this' _thought the Kyuubi.

After Naruto finished his task he spoke to the fox "In a few minutes you will be able to see, hear, smell, taste and feel what I feel. I hope this will help us to work together in the future Kyuubi-san."

The Kyuubi was intrigued by Naruto's actions, and decided to help him. Besides it seemed the brat would become strong. Maybe even strong enough to help him defeat THAT man.

The Kyuubi grinned, "_You're interesting brat. It seems you have potential to be strong, maybe even strong enough to be called my host. And you see the world as it is meant to be seen, not in black and white, but in varying shades of grey. You have my support for now gaki. Now get out."_

"Thank you Kyuubi-san. We shall meet again soon." said Naruto as he left his mindscape.

As soon as Naruto left, the Kyuubi once again took a look around and was struck by the enormity of the boy's gesture, and the partnership he had proposed. The Kyuubi grinned. Things were finally getting interesting.

**A/N:**

**Hello people and sorry for the late update. I have exams and am finding it difficult to write and upload for the time being. I will try to upload faster from now on. And the chapters will be getting longer from now on. I appreciate all those who have spent time to send me ideas and reviews. Constructive ideas and reviews are always welcome. See you soon.**


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto. That honour belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.**

**CHAPTER 4**

"Hello"- Human speech

'What?'-Human thoughts

"_Pathetic ningen"-Demonic speech_

'_I shall prevail'-Demonic thoughts_

A few days after making contact with his tenant, Naruto started to make plans. Thanks to his pact of sorts with the entity in his stomach he was able to explore his gift in more detail. This was important as due to the seal on his stomach, the biju's chakra was always mixing with his own and produced a lot of stress in his coils, causing them to expand. This also caused him to have very poor chakra control due to the constant stress his chakra network was under. After his discussion with the Kyuubi they had worked out a solution where the Kyuubi kept the flow of his chakra through the seal constant.

The reason this was important was because if the Kyuubi fought the seal, the amount of chakra would increase or decrease depending on the amounts used by the bijuu, which would hamper his control even more due to the irregular flow, through the seal.

Naruto had figured this out the hard way, when he tried to experiment with his mental powers, but failed. At first he did not understand the reason for the failure in the technique, as he did not have that much knowledge of chakra. To rectify this deficit in his knowledge he had sneaked into the Konoha Public library. The place was not very heavily guarded as it only contained materials that were useful for pre genin students, and most civilian trades. Any higher knowledge than that was well guarded in the Konoha Ninja archives. Still as Naruto was not even an academy student at the time, he would not be able to access even those basic of materials about chakra. So he prowled around the building for a few days and when the librarian had locked up for the night, he sneaked in and browsed the shelves for the books on chakra.

After perusing the relevant books and having determined his problems to stem from a lack of chakra control he had spoken with the Kyuubi and worked out a solution to his control problems.

Now since the flow was constant, even though his control would still be hampered, it could be compensated for and the problems overcome.

After his chakra control was at an academy student's level he began to explore his ability, testing its limits and seeing how he could further improve the usable range. When he was thus doing so, he had struck up a conversation with the Kyuubi, but his consciousness seemed to expand out from him, and he was able to somehow feel the people and things near him. Not clearly, nor could he hear their thoughts, but if he concentrated on a single person, he was able to read their surface thoughts. When he tried to access the civilian's memory however, other than a few whispers of the target's current thoughts his probe failed to penetrate the outer layer of the target's consciousness. He came to the conclusion that his powers were not yet fully developed, it seems that the time he had been able to penetrate the old civilian's mind was by accident more than skill. So he theorized that if the consciousness was less active, like when the target was asleep or, injured, as such he would be able to penetrate through their minds much more easily.

When he tested this out, he was pleased to know that he had guessed correctly. He had wanted to test it out on the same person he had tried with in the morning, so he discreetly tailed the civilian to his home, and hid himself until it was night time and the target had gone to sleep. Then he had tried his technique again by concentrating on finding the similar feel of the target's mind. At first it did not work, as until then he had visual confirmation of the target whose thoughts he was probing. So he managed to climb a tree near the house and was able to look through the target's bedroom window to find him sleeping. As he wanted to test whether his consciousness theory was right, he concentrated again on the target's thoughts. As soon as his probe made contact though, everything was different.

Usually he would be able to read surface thoughts but here, it was like the whole mind was open to him. He just started thinking about a topic and was bombarded by the incoming information. At first he was too overwhelmed to make any sense of the memories he was seeing. He could not make out anything more than unintelligible sounds and images. Slowly as he concentrated more, he was able to view the information and sort through a little, so that he was able to make sense of some of the memories. But still most of the memories were like gibberish. He just could not grasp them.

Ending his technique, he exited the area and was pondering on his current predicament. On one hand, his idea that he would be able to penetrate deeper into the target's consciousness when asleep was a success. But he still did not understand, how it worked, or anything further about his own technique. If he was to make sense of the memories he had just viewed, he needed to understand several things about his technique and how the brain worked in general. For this he needed a master of the Yamanaka clan, due to their special Hijitsus (Hidden techniques).

After he came to this conclusion, he had to decide who to approach about this, because he could not just walk to their clan compound and declare that he had a similar technique to theirs. 'That would end in an unmitigated disaster', Naruto thought wryly to himself. If the Kyuubi container suddenly showed up at the Yamanaka clan compound stating that he had a technique to read minds similar to theirs, it would cause unending problems. Some Yamanaka might even accuse him of stealing their techniques despite how stupid it might sound. And furthermore there seemed to be very few Yamanaka who actually were skilled with their techniques. He had found through gossip and observation that very few members of the Yamanaka clan were able to use higher variants of their mind penetration, and information extraction techniques. Many used only the Shintenshin no jutsu (Mind body switch technique) and at maximum the Shinranshin no jutsu (Mind body disturbance technique). He came to know that some of the most proficient among the clan worked in the Torture and Interrogation division (T&I), such as the clan head and one of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Yamanaka Inoichi.

But he could not approach someone like Yamanaka Inoichi at any costs. Not only would the information get back to the Sandaime Hokage, but being the clan head of the Yamanaka clan, he would not allow Naruto to leave so easily once he had what he came for, assuming of course that he got to that point. He would most probably be made to join the clan (In his opinion it was the best case scenario), or maybe captured and killed (the worst case scenario). Either way he could not approach an active duty shinobi.

That left the retired ninjas, or young children of the clan. Since children would not have been taught much and not have the knowledge he required yet, that option was not feasible. On the other hand he could try one of the retired ninjas, but that was pushing his luck, as several off duty, and retired shinobi were in that state due to their injuries sustained during the Kyuubi attack. Even if that was not the case, the older generation all knew that he was the Kyuubi container, and depending on that information they could either hate him or just be indifferent to him. Still neither would help his cause, so he needed to look further into the retired nins, for a particular trait. They must be old enough that they have the knowledge he requires, but should not hate him or just be curious enough to teach him, and not report him to the Hokage or to anyone else for that matter.

Finally after a month of intense searching and following leads, he found himself in front of the home of Yamanaka Saeko. He had after much discreet questioning found that not all Yamanaka stayed in the clan compound. Some stayed out of the compound due to certain duties, or if they were not shinobi and did not want to reside in the compound. Finding out about Yamanaka Saeko was surprisingly not so difficult. He had expected to spend months to find a person to fit his requirements, but had found out about the Yamanaka elder through a clan civilian who ran a tea store.

'Alright let's see if the search was worth it.'

As he entered he saw a bell pull near the entrance, and decided to introduce himself. A minute after he had pulled the bell, a tall, swarthy man had answered and asked him what he wanted. Since he wanted to at least try to make a favourable impression "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I am here to see Yamanaka-Sama. I want to talk to her about something that she might find interesting."

The man stared at him for a moment and went inside the house. He came out again, and asked Naruto to step inside. Once he entered the house he saw it was a good sized manor. It was decorated very richly with tapestries and very elaborate paintings. A particular portrait in the entrance hall which caught his eye, was a life size painting of an extremely beautiful woman with rich blonde hair, and deep blue eyes, and a stunning complexion, dressed in a purple yukata.

"So how do you like my portrait", a voice said behind him. Naruto had been so busy admiring the portrait that he had not even noticed someone else entering the room. When he turned about he saw an extremely wrinkled old woman seated in a very comfortable chair with plush cushions. For a moment Naruto could not believe that he was seeing the same person that he just saw in the portrait. But then he saw a flicker of amusement pass through her blue eyes and he knew this was whom he had come to see.

He immediately did a steep bow to show his respect "Good evening Yamanaka Sama, and thank you for meeting me. I am Uzumaki Naruto."

"So I gathered, tell me why you have come here?" replied the old Yamanaka.

Naruto had thought long and hard on how to broach the subject with someone. But with this particular person it was best to just get to the point.

"I have somehow come into the possession of a technique that is somewhat similar to the Yamanaka Hijitsu. Obviously I couldn't spread this information about freely, so I sought someone who could help me without compromising my unique situation." Naruto carefully replied.

The somewhat carefree look in the old woman's eyes had vanished, to be replaced by an extremely sharp look, as if looking whether he was speaking the truth or not. After a minute or so of this passive examination, she suddenly gave a small nod as if acknowledging his statement.

"It seems you speak the truth. My passive scan probes cannot even feel the presence of your mind. It seems as if your mind is hidden beneath layers of protections." She said.

Naruto suddenly twitched. He didn't even feel it. 'What if it had gotten through?' he thought worriedly.

"Oh don't worry about it. I would not have used the full mind penetration jutsu on you. It would have been rather counterproductive, what with your... ah little problem." she said. After all who knew what would happen if she tried it on a jinchuuriki.

Naruto smirked. "Oh I'm sure you would have found my mind an absolute prison" he said referring to his role as a demon container.

She suddenly jerked back in her chair as if shocked. She then took an even closer look at him as if looking for something. "You already know about it don't you?" she asked.

He merely nodded to show that yes, he did know.

"Matters of your... tenant aside, what did you mean by your words? Tell me what happened exactly."

So he did. He told her how exactly he had awakened his power. He knew he should not tell her everything about that time, but he was just a little kid, and he needed to confide in somebody. He was not even six years old, and he had to take a life already. Sure there were younger people than him who had to fight and kill, but a majority of those people had someone to confide in or were trained in such things and had support systems in place for such things such as guidance councillors, parents or even friends.

Naruto had no one. He could not even confide this matter to someone in the fear that they would immediately try to kill him. Not that there were several people that he could speak about such a thing anyway. There was the Old Man and maybe the owner of the ramen shop that the Old Man had sometimes taken him out to, when he was free from his duties. The owner of the ramen stall had not glared at him like all the other people, but still Naruto had gotten a feeling, that he was not completely happy with Naruto's presence in his stand.

Anyways, after holding it in for such a long time, Naruto could not stop himself from bursting out about the incident and his experiments later on. After he finished, he just realized that he had spilled his guts to a complete stranger. He had no idea how she would even react. She could inform the Hokage or just kill him herself. But he knew that he could not have held in his secret anymore. So when he looked up, he expected to see rage or maybe even fear, but he did not expect pity and sorrow.

As Saeko looked upon the young orphan before her who had just poured his heart out to her, she could not help but feel pity for him. The life of a demon container was not exactly easy. And the idiocy of the Sandaime to announce that the child held the beast that had just caused horrendous loss to life and property was not greeted with joy.

In her opinion, a jinchuuriki could either be used as a weapon or the secret of the container should not be revealed to the public other than the necessary people. Either choice would have been better than what had been finally done.

Konoha had already sustained huge losses in the Third Shinobi war. And a few years later the Kyuubi had caused even more loss of manpower. At that time, a trained jinchuuriki would have been most useful. It was cruel, but their world was cruel after all. The infant container would be trained from a young age to become strong enough, so that they could make up for their manpower losses until they recovered.

Or, they could have just hidden the existence of the container and had some loyal family raise him. The Sandaime could have ordered someone from his ANBU to raise the boy, after all ANBU are chosen for their loyalty as well after all. That way at least the boy could have had a normal upbringing.

But what Sarutobi had finally done was neither the former nor the latter. He had dropped off the infant at the orphanage claiming that he wanted him to have a normal life. Bah! As if that was going to happen. Already the orphanage was full to bursting with the orphans from the Kyuubi attack. And to place the one who everyone thinks is responsible for the destruction at their mercy? How was that a good idea?

All this passed through her mind in a flash. As she looked at the young orphan with weary eyes, eyes that were too old to belong to a child, she found herself at an impasse. She really should inform the Hokage of this. If what the boy was saying was true, it could be the work of the Kyuubi, maybe trying to escape. But, she was curious as well.

As far as she knew the bijuu had not shown any sign of being able to penetrate people's minds. All she knew was that it was capable of great feats, but she was not sure whether the beast could probe human minds. After all if the Kyuubi could do so, it would never have been defeated by the Shodaime Hokage, she reasoned to herself. If it could have, it would have entered the mind of the Shodaime and stopped him from using his Mokuton techniques to subdue it.

So she wondered how this boy obtained such a power. She decided she would at least hear the boy out before she made her final decision.

"Are you sure this power of yours did not originate from... your prisoner?" she asked him.

Naruto replied, "I am sure. The Kyuubi seems to have no knowledge of my power. He seemed to think it was maybe a modified Yamanaka technique, but then disregarded the thought saying that it felt too different somehow. When I asked if he could help me figure out how it worked, he admitted that he did not have any idea of how the technique functioned, let alone how to improve it. That was what really convinced me. If he did give me this power and was somehow trying to conceal this knowledge from me, he never would have admitted that he had no idea. He seems too proud for that."

Saeko was taken aback that he had that much contact with the bijuu, so she questioned him some more on what he had discovered on his own about the technique. After she had obtained the answers, she was most definitely sure it was not connected with the Yamanaka clan techniques.

Not many people outside the clan knew this, but to make the Yamanaka techniques work, there were several rituals and a variety of psychotropic drugs were to be administered before the techniques can be used.

All Yamanaka had the capacity to learn and use their mental powers, but the ritual and drugs were necessary to allow the user to become somewhat freer from their body's constraints and to develop the flexibility of the mind to use their clan's jutsu. It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Yamanaka clan. It had taken hundreds of years to establish the practice after generations of experiments to stabilize their bloodline and to make available their techniques to all their descendants. If anyone who had not undergone such preparations tries to use their techniques, it would either be a colossal waste of chakra, or their brain would tear itself to pieces.

That this boy was able to use such techniques without any such preparation was astonishing to say the least. But that alone would not suffice. She wanted to make sure that he was not simply trying to get power for the sake of vengeance. Those cases never turned out well. She was not saying that he did not have the right to seek revenge but if that was the only goal in his mind, she would have to turn him away. There had been others who had tried to approach her with only lust for power or some other petty reasons. She simply refused to teach such people, as she did not want to teach such weak minded people. It would reflect badly upon her judgement after all.

Throughout their lengthy dialogue Naruto was continuously glancing towards her servant, who was standing there, still as a statue, giving absolutely no reaction whatsoever. Finally in between the elder's questions he finally asked her about her servant.

"Oh you mean him. I got him as a reward for a favour done for the Hokage. They let me search the prison for whomever I wanted, and then I thoroughly mind raped him. Now he has no personality, no will. Controlling him just takes a small amount of concentration. He is the most successful of the batch. I made a mistake with another one, and he lost the ability to speak." replied the elder Yamanaka.

Naruto blanched upon hearing this, but stopped himself from showing too severe a reaction. Not all knowledge is good after all, and the secret arts of a clan would not be without dirty secrets after all.

Saeko keenly observed his reaction and nodded. The boy already had a good head on his shoulders. At this moment she decided that she had finally found the apprentice she had been searching for.

At that moment, the path of Uzumaki Naruto's life changed again.

**AN:**

Sorry for the late update. Had some problems in framing the story exactly how I wanted it. Thanks to all the reviewers for their suggestions.

I do not have an idea about the pairing as of yet. Any pairing I make right now does not seem very probable yet.

See you soon .


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto. It makes me sad. **

**CHAPTER 5**

"Hello"- Human speech

'What?'-Human thoughts

"_Pathetic ningen"-Demonic speech_

'_I shall prevail'-Demonic thoughts_

After he had met Saeko, she had made him do lots of strenuous exercises, saying that even if he learnt a fighting style right now, it wouldn't do him much good until he hit puberty. It was mostly because Naruto did not feel very comfortable with regular fixed katas for any style. After they had tried several different styles, Saeko understood that Naruto was more oriented towards an always moving, countering, and evolving kind of combat rather than based on fixed steps. Of course it was not always a good thing, but Saeko decided to take steps to make up for it. She said until then he should always focus on flexibility as whatever style he took up, flexibility was always paramount. So she had her servant teach him a lot of exercises and techniques designed to help to improve and keep the body flexible. The servant wasn't very good with the exercises, but that didn't matter as he was supposed to learn the way to do so. Saeko herself could not do much physical exercise, due to her extremely advanced age.

Their mornings always started out with these exercises, and after a while, she made him start to swim in a river, which due to an extremely narrow gap in the terrain forced the water to come out with great force, causing him to exert himself to the fullest to just stay in the same place in the river. When he had asked why he was swimming in such a way…

**Flashback:**

"Why am I performing this exercise Sensei?"

"I thought it was fairly obvious, swimming causes all the muscles in your body, to exert themselves, instead of the weight training that most shinobi use, which causes only the required muscles to be exerted." Saeko replied.

"Oh. If that is so, why don't more people use this method?" Naruto enquired.

Saeko shrugged, "The weight training can be done more frequently, as you can wear the weights as you travel and it provides a constant sort of training. It is faster compared to swimming, but it has its pitfalls as well. The standard weight training hinders optimum usage of your muscles and reduces flexibility. It makes your movements and stances too choppy. Hence swimming is the superior training method."

**End flashback**

Accepting that his sensei knew best he continued with the exercises, and saw his efforts bearing fruit. It was not ground shaking by any stretch of his imagination, but he felt his exertions becoming lesser as he trained more vigorously. Whenever this happened his training was upped in difficulty. When asked why, his sensei replied that constant exercise would help him later on his career as it would be that much easier to get full control of the movements of his body. And only when exerting the maximum amount of effort could he become truly skilled.

Naruto complied without any outward sign, but internally he was slightly annoyed. He had contacted Saeko so that she would help him with his mind techniques, not for physical training. Not that he was not grateful for it, as her instruction made many things clear on how he should condition himself to get into top shape, but he could have learnt it elsewhere, as his mind techniques were most important at this time. Saeko was the only one he had trusted with his secret and he was not sure for how much longer he could continue to train under her.

He was scared of somehow being found out by the Hokage. He did not know of the old Kage's motivations or ideas about him. He could be plotting on just using him for the Kyuubi, or he could genuinely be trying to help him. Either option was not good as far as he could see. The first option was self explanatory, but if it was the second the man had some really shitty ideas on how to raise a child properly.

Of course he could be completely wrong, and there could be hundreds of other likely scenarios, but at the moment he just could not bring himself to trust the Hokage.

He was also scared that Saeko might lose interest in him, or in the worst case scenario, pass away before she was able to help him figure out how his power worked.

So he was understandably impatient due to his fears, and considering how young he was it wasn't really surprising. What was surprising was how long he went, before he finally broke down and broached the topic that was on his mind.

**Flashback:**

"Can I ask you something sensei?"

"You already have, but you may." replied Saeko with a twinkle in her eyes at the oldest joke in the book.

Breathing in deeply and ignoring the humorous remark, he very carefully asked her "Is there a reason we have not yet begun trying to understand my technique, or even attempt to learn any kind of mind related techniques?"

"I was wondering when you would finally ask me about it." Saeko replied while smiling.

Not expecting the laid back response to his query, Naruto was somewhat flummoxed.

"Oh don't look at me like that. I know what I am doing. Did you think I was always an old hag all of my life? No. I was one of the best ninja that have ever been produced from this village. Do you think me training you in some half understood techniques considering your very different ability; would be enough to help you in the future? No. That alone would be insufficient. We are not sure of the origin of your ability. Is it a mutation of a previous bloodline or something new? If it is new, is it stable?"

Naruto was nonplussed, and was not sure on what to say, so he just kept quiet.

"Did you know that the Shodaime's Mokuton bloodline is regarded as an unstable bloodline? Do you know why? Because after him no one in the Senju clan seems to have inherited his ability to create trees. Hence his ability was deemed as too unstable to pass on. Maybe the bloodline would have stabilized and reemerged after a few generations, but alas, the Senju had an abominable run of bad luck. Now the last known Senju is Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sannin and it seems that it will remain so. The rest of the clan has been wiped out during the last two wars and the rest taken by disease. So you see I do not want to put all our hopes into a single option. After all, I have selected you as my apprentice, rejecting so many others for many decades. Do you think I wish to see my work undone because you could not move fast enough or could not adapt to the situation? No first you will learn the basics so that you can improve yourself even if we cannot continue to meet."

"But I am afraid the Hokage may find out about this and try to put a stop to it." Naruto exclaimed. **(1)**

"You think I have not thought about that? You have been watched off and on by ANBU agents sent by the Sandaime. I have woven a very powerful and subtle genjutsu over you, so that anyone who tries to find you will think you are going about your days as usual. It is a very powerful technique, and takes a lot of effort and experience to put up and maintain. It is also a passive type illusion, as an active one would be recognized and dispelled by the ANBU too easily. Since they are not taking their duties too seriously, the illusion ensnares them and we are able to train in peace. Unless an extremely talented and strong genjutsu user is assigned to watch over you we will not be found out."

To have one of his overriding fears dismissed so easily, made Naruto tense up subconsciously. He knew logically speaking that if his sensei had said that she had taken care of the matter, he should believe her. But he was under a lot of stress and quite frankly not equipped to handle the situation. He finally burst out saying "But what happens if something else disrupts the training? What will I do then?" and realizing his outburst he fell silent again.

"Do you think I will leave you in the middle of your training? That I would lose interest in you? Do not worry young Uzumaki. I swore to myself that I would teach you properly and teach you I shall. Just as I have faith in you that you will live up to my expectations, you must have faith in me my student." Saeko replied.

Naruto sighed. He was not totally sold on his sensei's speech, but she had kept her word so far. And there was literally no one else he could ask for help anyway. So his best bet was to trust in his sensei. "Alright sensei, but can we at least get started on my mental abilities?"

Saeko nodded and both went back to her mansion. After they were seated Saeko started speaking "To learn the mental arts one needs to have a clear mind. Few things clear the mind better than physical exertion. So that was one part of the training. From now on you will exercise in the mornings, and we will begin our lessons in the afternoons. Understood?" Naruto nodded to this.

Saeko continued "Alright, another reason we delayed your training a bit is because I was researching your ability. I can say for sure that your technique is not based or connected in any way to the Yamanaka hijitsu."

"How do you know that for sure Sensei?"

"Well being one of the most accomplished Yamanaka jutsu users, I tend to know these things." Saeko replied in dry voice to which Naruto blushed.

"Also the way you penetrate and read minds is in no way similar to the way that the clan techniques work. For a Yamanaka to do what you did you did, we need the subject to be placed in a special structure designed and made for the specific purpose of extracting and viewing information, and it has to be done by at least three jounin level users."

"What! But I've heard people say the Yamanaka can find out a person's secrets with their most basic jutsu" Naruto exclaimed.

Saeko snorted "Misdirection at its finest. You wouldn't want an enemy to find out about your techniques now would you? So people deliberately spread misinformation to keep any enemies who try to learn our secrets off balance. That is how the ninja world works Naruto. You must always be able to see through the lies and false information to find the truth. Remember that. Anyways the Shintenshin allows the user to project themselves into an opponent's body. But there are several disadvantages. The technique moves slowly, consumes a lot of chakra and when in control of the enemy's body any damage you cause to the enemy also gets done to you. And you can't read the enemies thoughts that way. Only an extremely powerful Yamanaka clan member with exceptional control and experience can scan the mind of a person without the needed equipment. Even then only the outermost of surface thoughts can be read, and only for a short time. So you see Naruto, what you can do is so much better than what the average Yamanaka can do."

Naruto was quite shocked at this information. He had assumed that his technique had its origins in the Yamanaka clan **(2)**. He even tentatively thought that maybe one or both of his parents could belong to the mind reading clan. After all there were extremely few other people in the village, civilian or ninja who had blond hair or blue and even less people had both. And considering his mind reading ability, his mind had automatically jumped to the conclusion that maybe he was a child of the Yamanaka clan. **(3)**

But now he was not so sure on the topic. He remembered that the Sandaime had once let it slip that he had his mother's clan name, Uzumaki. Realizing his mistake the Sandaime had clammed up after that. After all he had maintained for quite a while that he did not know who Naruto's parents were. But Naruto did not push after the issue. That had been the day that cracks had begun to form in the Sandaime's story.

Now that he thought about it, if he did belong to them, the Yamanaka should have taken him in. Even if they despised him due to his role as the Kyuubi's container, they would have seen the benefits of having a Jinchuuriki in the clan. Or maybe they feared the hate would be transferred upon them if they did so, making the clan a target?

'Hmm… a point to consider later.' he thought to himself.

"So, what now sensei?"

"Now my student, we must determine the ways in which your ability can be used by the only option available to us; trial and error. We do not dare try any of the Yamanaka clan techniques in fear of a horrible backfire from the technique as I do not think you would be compatible with the techniques. I cannot try and enter your mind to try to determine the working of your ability, as not only is your mind somehow shielded, there is also the matter of your tenant and we have no idea on how the seal will react to such an intrusion. So the only possible option we have left is trial and error. Let us begin."

**End Flashback**

**AN:**

I wanted to show that Naruto was still a kid and not someone with ice flowing in their veins when he speaks about being scared of being discovered by the Hokage or Saeko abandoning him. It is after all a natural reaction of someone under so much pressure and he is still a kid so the outbursts are understandable. I wanted it a little more believable.

Understandable if you don't have all the information.

He doesn't know the full truth about his parents yet, but he will soon.

A little short, but this ends the training portion of the flashback. The story will pick up speed after this. Please read and review.


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto. 'Nuff said.**

**CHAPTER 6**

**AN:**

I just wanted to make some things clear. Some people may find it difficult to understand why Naruto confided in Saeko, but you must remember that he is only a kid, and that he is intelligent enough to realize that he needed help. And he didn't go asking the first person he saw on the street now did he? He did his research before he approached Saeko; she will be instrumental in helping him live up to his potential. Because you at least need to learn the basics form someone, before you start to learn from books and scrolls. I just felt it was a bit unrealistic for a 6 year old to just pick up scrolls and understand such deep and complex concepts and theories regarding his ability. And if he did not approach Saeko he would have had to do all the experimentation on his own, whereas having someone who has years of experience in the mind arts can only help.

_**To Peter Kim:**_

Right now Naruto is looking to secure his life and his future. Even though he dislikes Konoha, it would not be so simple to slip away completely undetected and go to another Shinobi village. And if he gets caught he might be handed over to unscrupulous characters like Danzo, or even be caught or killed by slavers, bandits or missing nins along the way. And even if he defected successfully, what is to say he would be treated better anywhere else? They might not trust him, and might even try to rip the Kyuubi out of him to be sealed in a container of their own choice. So his best option at the moment is to stay in his current location, no matter how distasteful it might be.

And in this fic you graduate the academy at fifteen years not twelve. I do not think sending out twelve year old kids would be very useful. It only increases their mortality rate and many will not be able to deal with several aspects like killing at 12. Other than a few, the rest of the genin would not be combat effective at 12.

Hope my explanations were believable to all.

**Story start:**

"Hello"- Human speech

'What?'-Human thoughts

"_Pathetic ningen"-Demonic speech_

'_I shall prevail'-Demonic thoughts_

After that Naruto's training picked up speed. Not only did they work on his mental ability, but also on a variety of subjects from geography of the world to politics and famous people. Saeko had said "With your power you will be able to gather a lot of information. I want you to be smart enough to use the available data to get the best results."

So he was constantly quizzed and questioned by Saeko in various things. She would narrate to him an important battle that had once occurred and instead of telling him the end, she would ask him to think of a way of ending a certain battle or debate, or how he would have planned a certain raid or negotiated a treaty. Of course he was not expected to be right all the time. Saeko simply increased his reasoning and deduction abilities through the use of these sessions.

After one such debate on the battle between the Senju and an unnamed clan, which was fought before the founding of Konoha, Naruto had a question for Saeko.

"All the people in the past sound so much stronger than a lot of the ninjas today? Why is that?"

Saeko grimaced and replied "During the time of the Clan Wars, before the founding of Konoha, it was an extremely brutal world, some would say even more brutal than things are now, and they would be right in a way. In those days clans mistrusted each other severely. Even if they banded together, the alliance never lasted for long. In those days, only those who were strong survived. The weak ones or the ones who would become strong given time were eliminated first. It was the order of things. Even now, when enemies learn that a particularly skilled shinobi has children, they try to target them to deny the enemy more skilled shinobi in the future, as the probability of the children growing up to become as skilled as the parent is high. But the main reason the people of the past were stronger was due to constant exposure to life and death situations, and experience of facing many different and tough enemies. After all no matter how powerful you are, if you do not know how to use your strength properly, even a much weaker opponent can overcome you."

"But after the villages were founded, there has been an almost unnoticeable decline in skill over the years. It has been helped along by the inclusion of the civilian council and the Hokage. As you know becoming a shinobi is a much respected position in Konoha, and the civilians naturally want their children to become shinobi so that they can get better prospects in the future. The problem is that not all civilian children can or even have the capacity to become shinobi. The civilian council keeps reducing the passing standard for the Academy. The clans do have some advantages as usually due to superior genetics and training the clan children and children of shinobi receive beforehand; do have an advantage over the civilians. But instead of trying to improve their children, they make it easier for them to pass through the academy, by reducing the difficulty of the curriculum and passing standard. They do not realize that it will bite them in the ass later."

Naruto was surprised by his master's rant, but he could see the logic in her words.

"The world is not a kind place. Once they get out of the Academy, every time they leave the village, they could be embroiled in a life or death situation. They could encounter enemy forces, missing-ninjas, large companies of bandits, or any number of dangerous elements. If they are not prepared, they will end up dead, or worse. They could be captured and sold on the black market. Kunoichi are at the most risk in this type of situation."

"Ok, I can see missing nin or enemy forces doing this, but how can simple bandits keep trained shinobi restrained. Even if they are not very strong, all the genins would be superior to simple bandits would they not. I think I heard one of the passing requirements at the academy, is that all the students must be able to do the Nawanuke no Jutsu **[Rope escape technique]**."

"You're not thinking about it enough. Ninja are not the only ones who are trained to use chakra you know. Sometimes there are a few people who can use their chakra to do rudimentary things like increasing their strength or speed a little. I may be enough to surprise their opponents and put them off balance. Or they can take them out from long range, arrows are hard to avoid you know. They can even poison the arrowheads. If they did not see it coming, even experienced shinobi can be killed, by mere bandits. And on how they would be able to imprison the genin, there are several ways. They could cut off one of their hands or legs, blind them, cut off their ears to screw up their internal balance, as you know the ear is responsible to help in maintaining balance in the body, and innumerable other ways like poison, or threatening their teammates lives, etc."

As Naruto heard this he was once again reminded that no one was absolutely invulnerable in the world. Even a civilian could kill a kage, with enough preparation and if he was lucky enough.

So the training progressed, most of the time spent in meditation. Rather than trying to teach him a technique, Saeko was trying to make him find a method through which he could figure out his abilities and to be in a position to develop them by himself if necessary. But as long as she was with him, there was significant improvement.

During one such session, they finally were able to flesh out a technique for long range observation. It involved Saeko training Naruto to be a sensor, as it would be easier for him to observe his own chakra flow, which would help immeasurably in figuring out chakra requirements and limits of his techniques.

Naruto named his new technique Enkakushi no jutsu [Remote viewing technique]. The technique allowed him to observe a far away location, from a safe location. Though there were still a few problems with the technique, the usefulness of the technique was simply phenomenal. While he was at Saeko's house training, he would use it to check the location of the rundown apartment the Hokage had seen fit to give him after he was kicked out of the orphanage. He was not sure of the effectiveness of Saeko's genjutsu and always observed the random ANBU who would be assigned to look after him. If it seemed like the ANBU had noticed something amiss, he would immediately go to his apartment to keep up appearances. None of the ANBU were able to overcome Saeko's genjutsu as of yet. He was not sure whether it was because Saeko was that good, or if the ANBU were sloppy.

Naruto wondered whether it crossed the Hokage's mind that he was effectively telling a 5 year old boy to take care of himself. He just shrugged and let the matter go. He did not even try to penetrate the Hokage's mind. He did not have the necessary training to do so. At the time it had been incredibly taxing to even hear the outermost thoughts of untrained civilians. He did not want to risk the Hokage somehow discovering his mental probe. Maybe when he became better at using his abilities he would try one day, but until then he was not going to risk trying to break into a shinobi's mind. They lived in a village where the Yamanaka clan lived after all. If anyone even got the slightest hint of what he was doing, he had no idea what would happen.

He had even used the Enkakushi no jutsu on the Hokage's office once or twice on the off chance that he would see something interesting. But both times he simply saw the Sandaime doing paperwork. So he had stopped trying to look in on the Hokage as it was still very strenuous to perform and hold the technique. At best for now he could hold it for about 30 seconds and was hard at work trying to extend the amount of time, but it was slow going to say the least.

Not only did the technique demand huge amounts of chakra to perform, he also needed to have very precise chakra control in order to perform it. This was slowly becoming a problem as his chakra supply kept on increasing regularly. The usual tree and water walking exercises were too time consuming to keep repeating them, so Saeko was forced to constantly keep coming up with new exercises. She had even taught him a few medic nin level control exercises and finally came up with an exercise which helped for a while. She had him wear baggy clothes most of the time and had him use his chakra to make the clothes stick to him to avoid his clothes being dragged along the ground. It forced Naruto to channel and control the chakra flow throughout his body at the same time, which tremendously tested his control. He was also made to do things like balancing and rotating coins on his fingertips, and to try and move the coins up and down his arm using only chakra. Suffice to say he had good control.

Then one day Saeko told him to scale 10 floating poles. Floating poles were thin poles with a small pad on top to position feet on. The problem was that they were extremely hard to balance on as they wobbled when anyone tries to step on them. (1)

Saeko explained that to properly walk on the poles, a ninja needed to be able to use all the 28 bones in their foot. She told him that he had to become proficient enough to be able to shift his body weight perfectly so as to be able to use the poles properly. Learning this would tremendously help in training his body to be precise, to be able to stop still or sprint at a seconds notice, and be able to control his movements very precisely which would be an invaluable skill to learn.

Naruto's education continued apace. Even though he had made a lot of strides in learning the ways to use his kekkai genkai, he had not been able to come with any new jutsu, other than the long range viewing technique. Once they came to the conclusion that Naruto must be older in order to understand and further his abilities in his kekkai genkai, Saeko had him learn as much as possible, and how to safely experiment in order to push his understanding of his techniques, and in order to discover new ones.

After that she made him learn from a varied selection of subjects from poisons to fuuinjutsu. She said that it was best to learn about all the different types of ninja arts, as it would be undeniably useful in the future. Among these Naruto was very much fascinated with fuuinjutsu, but it was extremely hard to learn, as it required understanding a whole different type of rules, excellent penmanship, lots of chakra and proper chakra control and channeling, as during the creation of the seals chakra had to be properly channeled into the seal in specific patterns according to the required seal. It had to be painstakingly done, as even a single error could cause disastrous consequences. It was extremely difficult to learn, but he knew its effectiveness. He was a walking example of this particular art after all.

But it was neither easy nor were there any shortcuts in learning it. He calculated that it would be many years before he could reach even an intermediate level at sealing. But there were undeniable advantages to learning the art as well. He had learned to make standard sealing scrolls and was well on his way to creating a proper explosive tag. He always conducted his sealing studies at a little distance away from Saeko's house, in case there were any errors in the seal and it malfunctioned. When he finished learning how to make a standard explosion tag, he was going to try to vary the chakra amounts and explosion types. He wanted to try to make several different types of tags from flash tags, to timed explosive seals.

As his studies progressed, he was one day given several large books, which contained most of the known clans in the world and their specialties and talents. As he was going through the book, he came across the Uzumaki clan. At first he became excited thinking this would help him locate some relatives of his, but his dream of meeting some family was shattered when he read about the surprise attack on Uzhiogakure **[Land of Whirlpools] **by Iwa, Kumo, and Kiri during the Second Ninja War.

It seemed that Uzhiogakure was never a particularly large village, and they posed such a threat only because of their phenomenal fuuinjutsu skills. There were other factors as well, but it was the other villages fear that caused the attack on Uzhiogakure. What he found most odd was that, though there were some sightings of some Uzumaki escaping the attack, they had not come to Konoha for protection. This seemed particularly odd to him, as both Konoha and Uzhio were said to be great friends and allies due to their link with the Senju clan.

Naruto shrugged and set aside the problem. He couldn't do anything about it right now. And besides he did not have all the information. The survivors might have been ambushed, or something. But this topic was to be pursued later when he had more time and resources to devote to the case.

The next day when he was training with Saeko on establishing a type of mind control technique, similar to the Shintenshin jutsu **[Mind and body switch technique]**. Saeko had been curious whether he would be able to perform such a technique, as it was the most basic technique of the Yamanaka clan, though there were drawbacks to it. Of course they were not trying out the technique first; as if it went wrongly there could be disastrous consequences. They were simply trying to repurpose it and checking if it would be possible for Naruto to perform.

However, it seemed that it was not meant to be. However they tried the technique was not usable by Naruto. Saeko mused that maybe the technique was too rooted in the Yamanaka clan powers, and thus was unusable as his powers were clearly different. Naruto shrugged, he was sure Saeko knew more about it than him on the matter, so he left it at that.

After their experiment, Saeko decided that they required a little break in their training.

When Naruto enquired as to why they were stopping;

"It seems the Hokage is aware that something is amiss about you."

Naruto stilled completely. It was one of his greatest nightmares, that someone would find out about him. That it was the Sandaime who was getting suspicious made it even more problematic. Before he fully panicked, Saeko continued.

"Don't worry; your secret is still safe. It seems there was a change in your usual ANBU guard routine. One of them noticed something off, about your apartment. Whoever it was has not yet pierced the veil over your house, but it may happen if they seriously try."

"What are you saying? You said nobody could get past your genjutsu."

"I said as long as nobody was actively looking for you and were not very focused, they would not find out. The one who discovered the problem must have tremendous ability, to be able to sense it is a great accomplishment. So we will cool things off for a while and then I will get a coded message for you when it is safe to continue."

"But how will you find out it is safe again?"

"Silly boy, have you forgotten who I am? I can find out who originally reported the problem, and send for you when their schedule has changed. Remember Naruto, in the shinobi world, the right information can be more powerful than an entire army."

Upon hearing this Naruto grudgingly agreed that Saeko had a point. It would not do to be discovered at this very delicate stage; though she had made it very clear that he was not to be idle in the coming break.

"Continue your physical training as always. Do not try to perform any chakra exercises or techniques unless you are absolutely sure you are alone. Your watchers will not consider you a skilled individual, so will mostly be lax in your monitoring. Use this to your advantage. Use your sense of hearing and smell to detect any nearby people or animals, and if needed use your special gifts to verify your privacy. Do you understand?"

Naruto agreed and vowed that the next time he saw Saeko he would reach even greater heights, by creating a new technique by himself.

Little did he know that he would stumble upon a entirely new type of hijitsu [**Secret technique]**, from a most unlikely source.

**AN:**

Floating poles are not the exact name for them, but what they are in essence are sturdy, but very flexible sticks stuck in the ground with a small disc on top. The poles are arranged in an ascending order of height, and as the height of the pole increases the sticks become more wobbly. Think of the poles in all the martial movies, on which the characters train to achieve absolute balance, but thinner and of increasing heights. This is an extension of that and was actually used by ancient ninjas in Japan. To be efficient you have to be able to move in whatever direction at full speed by masterfully using all of the bones in the foot. I actually saw a video of this in fight science program, where a man performed this to demonstrate his version of Ninjitsu.

Also, I have done some small changes in the beginning of the fourth chapter, so check it out.


End file.
